14 February 2016

The Razor's Edge: Covenant Faithfulness and Apostasy Part II

The antithesis requires that our children will grow up
knowing that it means something to be a Christian and this affects the whole of
life and the decisions and plans that we make.

But it also means that they will realise it's not the
'both-and' of mainstream Christianity but the definitive 'either-or'.

There are plenty of issues and questions that can be
addressed and answered by the incorporation of 'both-and' thinking, and can
even be done so in a non-accommodationist way. We can widen the question, embrace
types of multi-perspectivalism and thus to a degree embrace and entertain a
reduction in certainty without giving in to absolute extremes.

And yet this question of 'What is a Christian?' is not one of
them. In fact Sacralism perhaps more than any other doctrine has led to
confusion and the redefinition of the term itself. It has created definitions
of 'Christian' that incorporate the nominal or cultural Christian as well as
the devoted inner-circle type Christian. Some mistakenly attribute this to or
tie it in with paedobaptism. All doctrines are subject to abuse to be sure but
that's not the real issue. Paedobaptism (assuming its Biblical which I would vociferously
argue it is) can function in a separatist model as long as there is Church
discipline. Don't become confused by its Sacralist abuses that equate cultural
normativity with Christianity.

Again the risk is... the same risk that ought to be
functioning in any Bible-based ecclesiastical system, that of discipline and
ultimately excommunication.

Separatism is imperiled and distorted when a host of
legalistic requirements are attached to it. Over time it is inevitable that the
focus is on the extra-Scriptural. The legalistic issues of conduct (dress, food
and drink etc...) end up becoming the criterion of separation and a de facto
expression of the Gospel standard. The groups that fall into this trap end up
focusing on these secondary points and the man-made restrictions concerning
them as the dividing line between them and the world. The legalistic standards
become the Gospel and Christ is all but lost in a Pharisaical fog. This is a
real danger and often it is the breaking point for many a young person who
begins to question it all. The legalistic standards don't stand up to scrutiny
or even surface level exegesis. They are almost always rooted in some kind of
cultural meta-narrative which is easily dissected and dispensed with. The
standards seem arbitrary, even superficial and often enough this is true. The
young person (and not a few adults) is left standing on shifting sand and they
begin to look elsewhere for a more firm foundation. They sometimes think they
find it by abandoning the faith altogether which is of course catastrophic in
the end. They start down a road of misery and rebellion.

The antithesis is necessitated by Scripture but it like the whole
of the Christian life is somewhat dangerous and fraught with multiple perils.
We are called to take up the cross, we are called to lay down our lives as it
were and as parents that includes the lives of our children. That may seem a
harsh way to put it but the stakes couldn't be higher. We have to prepare them
for the reality of Christian life in an absolutely hostile world and one filled
with false teachers and counterfeit Christianity.

I urge all to read the New Testament through once more taking
special note of how often we are warned of the perils of false teachers and
false doctrine. It is both implicit and often quite explicit and once you
discern this point it starts to become a very prominent theme and you realise
how much this is missed. Sacralism in seeking the conquest of culture identifies
the world as the ultimate enemy. The world is the enemy to be sure, especially
when its values are incorporated within a Christian theology, but there's not a
single verse in the New Testament that suggests our goal in the New Covenant
era is to conquer culture, seek to transform it, appropriate it or anything of
the sort. There's not one. It's a wholly Judaised concept that is imposing Old
Testament thinking on the New Testament paradigm. It is a rejection of the New
Testament and the authority of the Apostles that they exercise in Christocentrically
interpreting the Old.

The Plymouth Brethren as muddled as they are on certain
points grasp the nature and necessity of Biblical Separatism. The particulars
can be debated for sure but largely they have understood (unlike the Amish)
that we must be in the world but not of it. It's difficult and requires a great
deal of wisdom. Have the Brethren fallen into some legalistic traps? Undoubtedly
they have but I would argue they are closer to the truth than the Evangelical
(and much of the Reformed) world that have all but sold out and given in to
accommodating the world. Sacralism once again has facilitated this and provided
rationalisations for what can only be described as worldliness. All too often
the fleshly lusts of covetousness, greed, pride and revenge are transformed
into spiritual virtues and veiled by the language of theological discourse.

I often think of the Puritans in New England and how they
endured countless difficulties to arrive at their position. For many the
struggles led them to abandon England and seek the New World. And yet their
children did not grow up in the world of opposition, in the setting of
contention. They started to lose the character, the fire that characterised
their parents and grandparents. I'm not for a moment agreeing with the Puritans
on all points. Far from it. But practically speaking it always strikes me that
part of who we are is our experience and our struggles. For many of us today we
have had to wrestle with ideas and in many cases we have struggled within
congregations. Our children are often experiencing something different which is
in one sense a very good thing.

But it's difficult to foster within them a stern, sturdy and
resilient character that upon reaching adulthood will wrestle with these same
issues and exhibit a spiritual fortitude. It's all too easy to create little
robot soldiers parroting their parent's arguments. That's not what I want. I
want young adults that can think and hopefully I've made my case and the things
we as parents stand for will withstand the test that is the world and the easy
path offered by the false church.

But if they fall away, great bitterness will likely ensue.
They will be overwhelmed by feelings of despair, frustration, anger even rage.
I mention the Brethren because it's both sad and interesting to view some of
their examples. Some are quite prominent. Some of these people have become very
hostile to Christianity even devoted to waging war against it.

Some view this as a testimony against the Brethren. I think
that's a mistake, at least in some sense.

While legalism can lead to frustration and confusion it alone
cannot be blamed. Legalism can indeed drive people away, but the Brethren
inculcate that sense of antithesis with the world and when adult children
reject that they seem to grasp (even if intuitively) the magnitude of the
severance. They understand that by breaking with the Separatist/Antithesis
'group' they are making an absolute
break and are now wholly outside. They are now in the world.

That's harsh, even painful, but it's right and proper.
There's a line between the Church and the world.

Those who break with their faith and yet don't'feel' this intense division actually
testify to the worldliness of the particular church they broke with. They
testify to the fact that there wasn't all that much that made them distinct
from the world and thus in many cases they don't feel it that acutely. And if
that church treats their defection something less than grave, they feel the break
even less so. In the end this is actually far more harmful to the child or
person that is broken away. It seems like in the end it's not that significant
of an issue. They don't feel the burden or magnitude of what they have done.